Sarevok57's Mega Icewind Dale Mod is finally here and it's a big one

Come one come all, I have finally finished this massive mod that I have made for IWD/HOW, I believe it took me over 320 hours to complete in a 3 week period or so but anyways, on to the good stuff, unless you just want to skip all of what this has to offer if you like surprises, so just go straight to the bottom for install details

PS: I will always keep the most up to date mod for download at the bottom of this page for convenience of new comers

First big improvement: Difficulty setting

the difficulty setting now greatly impacts how the game is played, on a lower setting enemies will use less spells and abilities, on higher settings more monsters/ more powerful monsters will spawn, and enemies will use better spells and abilities, to learn more, once you install the mod, check out what the difficulty slider has to say about the difficulty settings

Next: Sound sets have been restored to EVERYBODY

what this means is that EVERY SINGLE NPC in the game has a sound set now ( although I forgot to do the summons from spells, but to be honest they don't really need it anyway) this took a mammoth amount of time and effort to do and the reason why I did it, was to make the game feel more alive, and it actually does help a bit, instead of the dead cold silence everyone had before

Next: More music tracks

speaking about sound sets, I've noticed that IWD can be quite silent, especially when it comes to combat music, so I've added a lot of combat music to the game ( in fact everywhere that can have combat music has been added) I didn't replace any of the original IWD tracks though, so those are still there, to me this music track addition really helps bring the game to life a little better I think

Next: Weapon Proficiencies

weapon proficiencies have had a huge over haul, as in some classes can go as high as 7 points in one weapon, so make sure to double check the maximum proficiency points your class is allowed to have in weapons and weapon styles, even weapon styles can go as high as 5 points now as well, so be aware and check out the new proficiency point system for weapons and weapon styles( also note, if you are at 5 proficiency points and you see that it looks like it's maxed out - because of space limitations- try me, if your class allows it, you can keep pointing the points on, it just won't show up on the level up screen, but it will on the record page)

Next: A whole bunch of new items

I have added a whole bunch of new items to the game, so can be found, some can be bought, I don't recall how many I added, probably close to 50+ I'm thinking, I also tried to make it so they weren't to over powered of an addition, and also there is one secret item that I have added, and there is only one way to get it, so happy lurking

High Quality Bastard Swords:

I noticed that in the original these swords were a little hard to see which ones were plain and which ones where high quality, so I made the high quality ones have a blue hue so it's higher to determine which sword is which

All weapons with abilities attached to them:

I've updated every single weapon in the game to make it more fair, some weapons ( like hold fast ) for example were brutally over powered, so now all weapons have a save for their effect, and most effects have a lot shorter duration for their effect ( although the odd weapon may have no save for their effect, the duration will still be a lot shorter

Magical Two handed axes:

Magical two handed axes will now have a different color to represent their magicalness, so to make them a lot less mundane

Weapons with Damage Resistance:

Because of the Dwarven Defender and Barbarian classes it's very easy to have high damage resistance, especially with some of the weapons in IWD, so I toned down the damage resistance of most of the weapons ( usually 10% is the highest which is still good) also the bone marrow belt I toned it down to 15 % slashing ( as apposed to the ridiculous 50% it had before) all armors have been unchanged though ( since it's mostly studded leathers that have damage resistance, and even the ones that aren't studded leather are quite reasonable)

Armors and Shields with Damage Resistance:

I've updated all the armor and shields that have damage resistance to be less insane then they previously were, thanks to dwarven defenders ( at least before my mod ) you could get over 100 % damage resistance, so now, no armor or shield will grant more than 10% ( except for maybe the odd few )

Next: Stores and Temples have been upgraded

As the title says, A LOT of the stores have been upgraded ( and by a lot I mean all of them) and quite a few of the temples have been upgraded as well so anytime you go to a store or a temple, check out and see what new goodies they have, and speaking about stores, I have made it so items are more expensive and you get less money for selling items so then you don't sit on a moon size chunk of gold the time you get to the end of the game, I've actually found it to be quite effective, plus no one will buy wands ever ( I couldn't make it so if you sold a wand and bought it back, to make it so it only gives a small amount of charges, its always 50 or 100) I did this to help calm down the OPness of wands, so what you get is what you get, so be wary

Next: Experience Points have been altered

you are going to see a familiar experience point allocation if you played bg2, I have changed a lot of the experience to give quest xp to each character instead of just getting that huge wad in one go, (although some quests will give a set amount) again I found this to be a more effective way of doing experience, plus it also helps give you solo'ers a much bigger challenge, also your difficulty setting will sometimes affect your experience from quests as well, the higher the setting, the more you will get, even a few boss enemies' experience point gain are based on the difficulty setting as well

Next: Bonus Experience for traps/locks/ and scrolls

I have added this into IWD since it's already in the bg games, although its not to huge, as scrolls will give level x 50 XP, and you will see what traps and locks will give, and as per usual the higher level your thief is, the more XP from traps and locks

Next: Max Level

I have increased max level to 40, and all it really does is give a little bit of HP gain, a tiny bit of a spell gain, and maybe perhaps a small saving throw gain, I really did it for those people who really want the full experience of HoF mode on insane and not get capped out to quick, with me, I did a full run on insane with the XP boost off, and I think I hit around a little under 3.5 million the time I got to the last boss in HOW, so having the level cap at 40, does not change gameplay all that much for those that are worried

Next: Superior Strength

I have altered superior strength scores ( 18/01-18/99) in which now for every point you have in the 18/xx will give you an extra 2lbs of weight allowance, so a score of 18/20 STR will now allow you to carry 240 lbs, while a score of 18/70 will allow you to carry 340 lbs, this makes it so now matte what your superior strength is, it will affect your weight allowance based on your 18/xx, and 400 is still 18/00

Next: I have changed some spells

there is a small list of spells that I have changed, nothing big, just to add a little big more flavor to them ( plus cloak of fear was bugged and did nothing so I had to fix that HA) so here is the list of spells that have been changed, check out their new spell descriptions in the game:

Now it's time for the big ol' .2da list, so here is the rest of the changes I have made according to the .2da files:

Half-Orcs: get a -2 penalty to charisma as well ( since 19 str/con is too good to only get -2 int)

Alignments: A lot of classes have had their alignments revamped ( so no lawful berserkers or barbarians sort of thing) plus druid now can be neutral evil or neutral good, so make sure to check for your alignment choices

Character Sounds: If you have my jon irenicus soundset ( which is on this forum somewhere) you can use it with this mod and his sounds will have subtitles if you like that sort of thing

Classes: some classes have become more available to more races ( any type of elf can now be a druid, didn't know if that was implemented before) and now gnomes can be bards ( except for blades, since blade is more of a warrior subtype than a musician subtype) plus halflings can be cleric/thieves as well, so make sure to check it out

Dwarven Defender:the dwarven defender is an outrageously over powered class, especially in IWDEE and what makes it more so is it's ridiculous dwarven defender ability, so I have altered this ability to be more like the DND v3.5 ability to make this class way more fair, and the ability being thus: lasts 10 rounds, the dwarf gains +2 strength/constitution/AC/saves and has the 50% movement rate penalty

Racial Enemies: there has been some additions to the racial enemies, so make sure to check it out, but also a warning; some of the harder enemy racial enemies might not appear on higher difficulties, so just keep that in mind depending on which difficulty you play on

Hit Points: I have altered how HP work a little bit, now every class' hp will get a roll up to level 10 ( although thief and mages are still the only one who get a HP bonus at level 10, I cant figure out how to make the rest of the classes do it) plus barbarians and dwarven defenders get 4 HP per level pass 10 instead of 3

Intelligence: I have affected intelligence a little bit for when it comes to spell learning and how many spells you can have per level the info can be find in this table:

Bonus Priest Spells: this table has been altered a bit as well, I have made it a little bit more spread, so its a little easier to get bonus level 6 and 7 spells, and I believe at max wisdom you only get +3 bonus spells per level instead of 4, so its only a little different, and not too much of a game changer, some spell levels you might have a spell less than you should, but others you might have a spell more

Lore: I have altered lore tables a little bit, everyone is the same as before except that clerics now get 2 lore points per level now instead of 1 ( I thought it made sense since a lot of temples can identify, so you would think that clerics would be quite knowledgeable as well

Racial To Hit Bonus: Dwarves now get a +1 bonus to hit with axes ( since dwarves get a bonus with the waraxe in 3.5)

Reputation: it is now possible to hit 20 reputation, there is 2 ways of doing it: doing heroic deeds, or spending some serious coinage at a temple, having that higher REP has the same effect that it had in bg, if you are curious on what the new donate table is here it is:

1 50002 4500 3 40004 35005 30006 25007 20008 15009 100010 75011 50012 100013 250014 500015 750016 1000017 1500018 2500019 5000020 n/aThat is how much money you need at that score to raise it to the next point

Random Treasure: the random treasure tables have been altered quite a bit, where only useful items will be obtained, and plus enemies will now be using those random items instead of them just chillin in a crate or box or whatever, plus some of the better ones will only be obtainable on higher difficulties so player be aware of that as well

Racial Saving Throw Bonus: I have altered this table just a little bit, it still basically works the same as before except now you don't get the +5 bonus unless your CON is 20 instead of 18, and plus you need at least 12 CON before you even get a bonus period

Pick Pocketing: some pick pocketing tables have been changed ( like the score you need to obtain certain items; boots, belts etc.) plus there are a lot more pick pocketable targets in the game as well, so if ya got a good pick pocket score, go nuts and find some goodies...

so yeah, that's all I can think of at the moment, there could easily be more added bonuses and upgrades that I can't think of at the moment ( since I revamped the ENTIRE game) so yeah, now for the install:

INSTALLING THE MOD

Step 1:

unzip the mod folder and there is going to be 2 files in there: a dialog file, and the override folder filed with all the goodies

Step 2:

-first, back up your dialogue talk file, it will be in your IWD directory, if you are using steam, it will look something like this: -Disk C/Steam/SteamApps/Common/Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition of if you got it from beamdog it might look like this: -Disk C/BeamDog/Games/007xx ( I don't have IWD from beamdog's launcher, but I know it's not 00766, or 00783) -so where ever your directory is, you want to go there and go to the "lang" file and go to the "en_US" file and you will see the dialogue talk file there-what you will want to do is copy paste that somewhere safe because that is your original and in case something messes up with this mod, you can always fall back to the original, so make a copy of that one

Step 3:

after you have made your original copy of your dialogue talk file, replace the one that is in your "en_US" folder with one from the mod, this mod add over 1200 string references, so you will definitely need this updated dialogue talk file or else there is going to be a lot of missing strings

Step 4:

now you need to go into the directory where your "lang" folder was ( it also has "data", "movies", "scripts" ect..) this is where you want to put the mod override folder, if you already have one in there, then take all 2377 items from the mod override folder and put them into your existing folder

Warning:

I had no prior mods installed before I made this mega mod, so if you have other mods, you will probably have to install them after this one, since this mod basically replaces everything, and be careful with mods that effect the dialogue talk file, I used the strings directly after the last one ( which I think was around 40830) so if your mods use dialogue strings from 40830-42200 or so, you will see some odd strings pop in the odd place

So, that is the jist of what this mod does, it certainly does add quite a bit of flavor to the game, and please, by all means, if you find bugs, tell me so then I can fix them as soon as possible, I did quite the extensive test on insane difficulty, and based on how my AI's are set up, if insane didn't work, then the rest wouldn't but you never know, so have fun, and tell me your thoughts and feelings, and ask questions if ya got 'em

oh trust me, there is lots of new AI in the game, every spell caster in the game has been redone, and a lot of the other melee enemies have had enhancements as well, but as I said before, depending on what difficulty you play on is how much of their new abilities they use

Why you're not using WeiDU? Your mod will be incompatibile with all other mods...

I have no idea how to use weidu, unless someone's IWD game is outrageously heavily modded, if people want to use more mods, all they need to do is install them after this one, and then hopefully it should be fine

Still it would be much better to use WeiDU. What if someone decides that he/she would like to uninstall the mod? If any other mods are installed, then it will be just impossible without damaging all the other mods. Method you're using is MUCH more dangerous AND it does not allow to install the mod on other languages... well, it will be never translated, too, because translators would need to know every line you changed and you did not provide that... so... yeah...

...one more thing - if you added new lines after original ones in the tlk, once Beamdog release the new patch (and it was said that it will be once released) everything will be outdated and won't work.

...one more thing - if you added new lines after original ones in the tlk, once Beamdog release the new patch (and it was said that it will be once released) everything will be outdated and won't work.

if that happens, then I will have to redo the dialogue talk file, hopefully beamdog doesn't add too many more lines to the existing one

Still I would advice you to make a WeiDU version as making it that way is extreemly bad and I can assure you - many players won't use the mod because it's just too dangerous, not translation-friendly and may cause incompatibilies. Override+replace method has not been used in IE modding for like... 11-12 years?

I think you can at least use a basic WeiDU to add the new strings (I think this is the only important thing, honestly)+copy all the stuff and still leave a note to install this mod first (there aren't many IwD mods out there so there shouldn't be a problem if you do this).

Still it would be much better to use WeiDU. What if someone decides that he/she would like to uninstall the mod? If any other mods are installed, then it will be just impossible without damaging all the other mods.

Even if the mod used WeiDU, if you wanted to uninstall it you'll need to uninstall everything first, it's not much of a difference (except you'll need to uninstall and reinstall the WeiDU mods either manually, by doing some trickery and black magic or using a script).

I think you can at least use a basic WeiDU to add the new strings (I think this is the only important thing, honestly)+copy all the stuff and still leave a note to install this mod first (there aren't many IwD mods out there so there shouldn't be a problem if you do this).

Still it would be much better to use WeiDU. What if someone decides that he/she would like to uninstall the mod? If any other mods are installed, then it will be just impossible without damaging all the other mods.

Even if the mod used WeiDU, if you wanted to uninstall it you'll need to uninstall everything first, it's not much of a difference (except you'll need to uninstall and reinstall the WeiDU mods either manually, by doing some trickery and black magic or using a script).

Great work @sarevok57 as was waiting for a mod like this to do my next IWD EE playthough but if youre going to update it for WeiDU then will wait for it...but everything on it I like, bravo!

well in the meantime if you don't want to wait, you can just copy and paste the mod override folder into your directory and just copy and paste the mod dialogue file in the en_US directory ( just make sure to make a back up of that original) and if you have any other mods just install them afterwards and you will be good to go, I will take a crack at it tomorrow and see if I can figure out this weiDU thing, but if I cant, you might just have to do it the old fashioned way

...one more thing - if you added new lines after original ones in the tlk, once Beamdog release the new patch (and it was said that it will be once released) everything will be outdated and won't work.

...one more thing - if you added new lines after original ones in the tlk, once Beamdog release the new patch (and it was said that it will be once released) everything will be outdated and won't work.

Like beamdog release patches...

well you can think of it this way, my mod turns IWD into version 1.5 heh

Thanks @sarevok57 - Just starting my first BWS modded EET run so may take me awhile and just finished two back to back IWD runs but want to try this out so keep it active as was hoping for a mod like this to come out!

oh I will don't worry, although it might take me a while to make a weidu version since their site isn't working at the moment so I cant download any weidu tools, but worse case scenario you can just copy paste the files over into your IWD game and it will work all the same , and whenever you get a chance to try the mod odd I hope you like it, you will definitely see a lot of improvements on the game, especially if you are crazy and try the insane difficulty

Definitely going to apply this to my IWDEE instance before my next serious run.

regarding WeiDU, you should be able to use any setup-blah.exe from any mod as a temporary measure until the main WeiDU site comes back up - just rename it the same as your tp2 file and it'll automagically look there for instructions. If you have BWS, I believe it includes an unchanged weidu.exe in the destination folder as well, though I could be mistaken.

Definitely going to apply this to my IWDEE instance before my next serious run.

regarding WeiDU, you should be able to use any setup-blah.exe from any mod as a temporary measure until the main WeiDU site comes back up - just rename it the same as your tp2 file and it'll automagically look there for instructions. If you have BWS, I believe it includes an unchanged weidu.exe in the destination folder as well, though I could be mistaken.

for reference, IWD has a beamdog code of 00798

And now for a singularly unhelpful comment:

the dead cold silence everyone had before

You, uh, have noticed the preponderance of undead in the game, yes?

no idea what BWS is unfortunately

and yes I do know how much undead there are in the game, I know exactly how many enemies are in the game because I modified every single one of them, that's a lot of dude/dudettes

...one more thing - if you added new lines after original ones in the tlk, once Beamdog release the new patch (and it was said that it will be once released) everything will be outdated and won't work.

I wish this was a normal WeiDU mod, with multiple components that can be installed independently.Because the content additions (sounds, items, stores, enemy AI...) sound great, but I'm not so keen on the random assortment of rule changes (patched proficiency / stat / XP tables etc.).

I prefer the venerable Tweaks Anthology for raising the level cap to 50, and the comprehensive and well-balanced Scales of Balance for rule changes. And I fear they'll be incompatible with this mod...

Nonetheless, thanks for creating a new IWD mod with content additions, there are not enough of those! Maybe I'll get around to trying it despite the aforementioned issue...

I wish this was a normal WeiDU mod, with multiple components that can be installed independently.Because the content additions (sounds, items, stores, enemy AI...) sound great, but I'm not so keen on the random assortment of rule changes (patched proficiency / stat / XP tables etc.).

I prefer the venerable Tweaks Anthology for raising the level cap to 50, and the comprehensive and well-balanced Scales of Balance for rule changes. And I fear they'll be incompatible with this mod...

Nonetheless, thanks for creating a new IWD mod with content additions, there are not enough of those! Maybe I'll get around to trying it despite the aforementioned issue...

if you install my mod and then install your other mods afterwards im pretty sure it should work out fine, as long as your other mods over write the ones I did, weidu site is still down so I cant attempt to make a weidu version

plus, if there are some things you don't want to change ( like the proficiency tables and such) just don't copy over the over the .2da files that change those

to be perfectly honest, I don't really know, I've never played SCS before but here are some of the things that they AI will do

- enemies will use items like potions and wands- enemies will use abilities like berserk, rage, kai, called shot etc...- enemies will use contingencies, sequencers- casters will have higher spell volumes than they did in the original- casters will also have prep spells cast on then when party sighted

there could be more, but more or less this is the improvements I have added, I do know one thing for sure:insane difficulty with this mod is way more difficult than insane was originally, infact hard difficulty with this mod might even be more difficult than insane was originally

and as stated before, the higher the difficulty, the better abilities/spells/items the enemies will use

basically the way I look at it, whatever difficulty you were comfortable with in the original IWDEE you might need to tone it down one ( except normal should still be okay, even though my normal is a bit harder at some points)

I have a great understanding when it comes to making parties and the rules of the game, and ability/ item management, plus im also a power gamer ( I've been playing these games since '99 with 1000s and 1000s of play throughs) and even I struggled quite a bit on my mod's insane difficulty

This is great and like this much better than just HOF multiply hit points to kiting and combat becomes tedious... Just started my mega mod BG playthrough so may take awhile for me to finish but using your mod on IWD is next on my list - once again thank you!

@brunardo you are very welcome, and I hope you like it, I see that the weidu site is still down, and even then I will probably be starting work soon and that means I might be working a couple months straight for 10-14 hour days, so if there are any real big issues I might not be able to fix them until summer, but im really hoping I was successful in ironing out all the bugs I had in my mod ( I at least know for certain insane should work perfectly and how I built this mod if insane works, the rest of the difficulties should)

but it for sure will be a different playing experience, I did my best to add flavor to the game, that's what the main goal was, and plus since the game is combat heavy, I tried my best to make battles as interesting as possible, so I hope you enjoy it

that's the first time I've ever seen a download work, although im not sure if I actually have the right stuff, the homepage still brings me to an error page that says error 404 The resource requested could not be found on this server